This board is a composition workshop, like a writers' workshop: post your work with questions about style or vocabulary, comment on other people's work, post composition challenges on some topic or form, or just dazzle us with your inventive use of galliambics.

poposceuntibus? what the hell?

Translate this passage. It is from a Yale entry test ca 1900. Episcopus, your participation is mandatory.

Before Caesar set out from Rome the Helvetians decided to burn all their villages and abandon their country because they were being hard pressed by the Germans. But as soon as Caesar was informed of this design, he hastened from the city, and after gathering as large an army as possible, pitched his camp near Geneva, in order to prevent the Helvetians from crossing the Rhone into the Roman province. Then the Helvetians sent envoys to Caesar and said, “We desire to journey through the province without causing any injury, and we ask that we may be allowed to do this with your good will.”

I converted it to oratio obliqua and edited my poorer version I sent to cam. Does this mean I get into Yale now? Does it papa? Can I stop working in these corn fields, skinning deer and other american wild beasts, to become educated at the best university in the world?

ANY ONE ELSE WHO SUCCEEDS WILL GET INTO YAYLE TOO! YAY!

P.S. Glad to see you approve of the perfect active participle, whiteoctave said that he has recently unearthed "poposceuntibus" in a very recently discovered Juvenal manuscript and applauds meine Sprachgefuhl. It was the same one cweb255, no less, tried to get his hands on - I think he sensed the philosopher's participle too.

benissimus wrote:Translate this passage. It is from a Yale entry test ca 1900.

It is interesting to see this. I was just looking at a book by William Collar (Via Latina, an easy latin reader of simple stories very similar to Fabulae Faciles) written in 1897. In the introduction the author laments the poor performance on the Harvard latin entrance exam from the previous few years. A full 1/3 of the students fail, and, since the passing mark is only about 40% or so, another 1/3 "pass" but in reality barely know any latin.

Before Caesar set out from Rome the Helvetians decided to burn all their villages and abandon their country because they were being hard pressed by the Germans. But as soon as Caesar was informed of this design, he hastened from the city, and after gathering as large an army as possible, pitched his camp near Geneva, in order to prevent the Helvetians from crossing the Rhone into the Roman province. Then the Helvetians sent envoys to Caesar and said, “We desire to journey through the province without causing any injury, and we ask that we may be allowed to do this with your good will.”

Thankyou for joining in bellum! Is it just me or has your latin become a lot better since you arrived at oxford? I can tell you are studying eagerly.
You would no doubt have been accepted into Yale! A few things -

1. "Ante Caesar Roma profectus est quam" antequam... is fine here, the quam at the end sounds canine. If you want to separate it I would put it either before Roma or profectus.
2. You don't really need the whole "cum...pressi essent" because one use of participles is cause, thus you can have a participle (verbal adjective) agreeing with Helvetii, meaning "because they had been hard pressed..."
3. "Caesare certiore hoc de consilio facto, statim properabat ab urbe, exercitu quam maximo collecto..." This is quite important - this sentence does not require the absolute because it is not gramatically free (absolutus) from the main clause (statim properabat...), because you have in the abl. abs. Caesar who is also the subject of "properabat". (I assume you're using the imperfect meaning 'he began to hasten...') What you currently have written means that Caesar was informed of this plan and some other person hastened from the city. So something like "Caesar de hoc certior factus statim properavit..."

Good awareness of prohibere +inf, I on the other hand just love quominus and "juicy" imperfect subjunctives (as my 3rd year oxonian classcist friend so eloquently put it).

4. licet mihi iter facere OR licet iter faciam
in other words, dative and then infinitive, or subjunctive WITHOUT "ut"

Hope this helps, more people should have a go as you have, keep studying, you should PM Thucydidididices he is there too, doing idem ac tute no doubt!

(edonnelly - I do not have any yale tests but am very eager to see the standard back then, if any one has them tell the bishôp!)

Thankyou for joining in bellum! Is it just me or has your latin become a lot better since you arrived at oxford? I can tell you are studying eagerly. You would no doubt have been accepted into Yale!

Thanks! I never did proses before coming here - so that has helped a good bit. If I hadn't improved at least marginally, I would probably have suffered a crisis of confidence- with the amount of time I've been putting in Latin recently.

1. "Ante Caesar Roma profectus est quam" antequam... is fine here, the quam at the end sounds canine. If you want to separate it I would put it either before Roma or profectus.

You're probably right about the poor use of tmesis here. I think I mainly threw it in because I had a lot of trouble with the construction when I first encountered it in M&F. Once known, it has haunted my usage (in revenge, I think, for the early confusioon).

2. You don't really need the whole "cum...pressi essent" because one use of participles is cause, thus you can have a participle (verbal adjective) agreeing with Helvetii, meaning "because they had been hard pressed..."

Yes, good point. I hope that, had I revised the passage (I was in a bit of a hurry) I would have trimmed it down with participles and such. Still, who can resist a tasty cum even when superfluous? It's rather like as in English, I think: "as you are a dolt, I despise you" - which can express, simultaneously, both temporal (=when) and causal (=since) contempt. Of course, it can't quite get the concessive sense, alas!

3. "Caesare certiore hoc de consilio facto, statim properabat ab urbe, exercitu quam maximo collecto..." This is quite important - this sentence does not require the absolute because it is not gramatically free (absolutus) from the main clause (statim properabat...), because you have in the abl. abs. Caesar who is also the subject of "properabat". (I assume you're using the imperfect meaning 'he began to hasten...') What you currently have written means that Caesar was informed of this plan and some other person hastened from the city. So something like "Caesar de hoc certior factus statim properavit..."

Yikes! I hang my head in shame. Quite serious indeed.

Good awareness of prohibere +inf, I on the other hand just love quominus and "juicy" imperfect subjunctives (as my 3rd year oxonian classcist friend so eloquently put it).

I noticed your

quominus

after I posted my translation and wondered. Of course, Latin usage is pretty flexible, at least much more flexible than textbooks suggest, and I applaud your slight license.

4. licet mihi iter facere OR licet iter faciam in other words, dative and then infinitive, or subjunctive WITHOUT "ut"

I've never been very comfortable with inconiunctis subjunctivis but I really ought to try volebam id tecum facerem and other such judicious expressions of style.

Hope this helps, more people should have a go as you have, keep studying, you should PM Thucydidididices he is there too, doing idem ac tute no doubt!

Great help and especial thanks for the reminder about ablative absolutes. de quibus vero certior factus eos per aevum memoria diligentissima tenebo. Thucydides has probably already left - without a response to my PM, I ought to note - but we must have been in a lecture or two together. It's a bit odd to think of.

Before Caesar set out from Rome the Helvetians decided to burn all their villages and abandon their country because they were being hard pressed by the Germans. But as soon as Caesar was informed of this design, he hastened from the city, and after gathering as large an army as possible, pitched his camp near Geneva, in order to prevent the Helvetians from crossing the Rhone into the Roman province. Then the Helvetians sent envoys to Caesar and said, ï¿½We desire to journey through the province without causing any injury, and we ask that we may be allowed to do this with your good will.?

benissimus wrote:Before Caesar set out from Rome the Helvetians decided to burn all their villages and abandon their country because they were being hard pressed by the Germans. But as soon as Caesar was informed of this design, he hastened from the city, and after gathering as large an army as possible, pitched his camp near Geneva, in order to prevent the Helvetians from crossing the Rhone into the Roman province. Then the Helvetians sent envoys to Caesar and said, ï¿½We desire to journey through the province without causing any injury, and we ask that we may be allowed to do this with your good will.ï¿½